Chapter 51: A Furious Breakthrough

The Rotten Wolf Leader’s tail swept through the air with a whistling sound.

Seeing this, Serol straightened her body, stabilized her stance, and with powerful breath, raised her knight’s sword to parry.

Then, accompanied by a beautiful arc, Serol was flung backward, crashing into a tree.

Xiluo’er was instantly dumbfounded. What happened to the legendary knight? What about the famed Man-Slayer? How could she be defeated so quickly?

‘This, surely this couldn’t also be a butterfly effect caused by my actions, could it?’

“Lady Serol!”

Rona cried out anxiously. However, she still had to protect Xiluo’er and confront the other Rotten Wolves, making it impossible for her to assist Serol.

“Cough, I’m… fine. Be careful, Rona…”

Though she claimed to be fine, the blood Serol coughed up offered no convincing argument.

The Rotten Wolf Leader eyed this seemingly formidable but ultimately weak opponent with a hint of confusion, then snorted disdainfully.

Having dispatched the foe it had initially perceived as a strong rival, the Rotten Wolf Leader turned its head back to the two prey it had originally targeted.

“Xiluo’er, you, stick close to me.”

Rona, unable to concern herself with Serol’s condition, could only steady the knight’s sword in her hands.

Behind her, Xiluo’er’s emotions were somewhat complex at that moment.

‘How should I put it? There’s a certain beauty in such dramatic ups and downs.’

Yet, before she could wallow in melancholy, Rona had already embraced Xiluo’er and rolled across the ground. The Rotten Wolf Leader, having completely lost patience, had launched a direct attack.

Although they had successfully dodged the strike, Rona and Xiluo’er, after rolling on the ground, were hardly in a better state, looking disheveled and covered in dust.

Xiluo’er gritted her teeth, her expression turning cold.

They could no longer wait. If they did, they would all perish here.

‘But… setting a trap only to fall into it myself—this feeling is truly unpleasant!’

Xiluo’er reached for the dagger hidden in her bosom, staring at the Rotten Wolf Leader as she strategized her attack.

‘If I act now, I’ll expose myself to Serol as well. Ugh…’

Xiluo’er dared not contemplate the consequences of her intervention, but if she didn’t act soon, she wouldn’t even have the chance to face those consequences.

Xiluo’er desperately wanted to climb a tree and use the forest’s advantage to launch an attack. However, Rona, who was shielding her completely, held her in a death grip. Not only was it impossible to break free, but even pulling the dagger from her chest proved difficult.

Xiluo’er was about to reveal her identity to Rona and ask her to let go, but with her head buried in Rona’s substantial chest, Xiluo’er stammered for a long time, unable to form a coherent sentence. She only vaguely heard another disturbance in the forest, the nth one that day.

Clutched in Rona’s embrace, Xiluo’er struggled immensely to free her head from Rona’s ample bosom and observe the commotion outside.

The air trembled, as if something was rapidly approaching.

‘Hiss, is my luck just terrible today? Why am I encountering nothing but misfortune?’

However, it wasn’t another monstrous beast as expected. What tore through the air was a massive fireball, which slammed heavily into the Rotten Wolf Leader before it could evade.

‘Eh? What’s going on?’

Xiluo’er blinked, looking in the direction from which the fireball had flown.

Stepping out of the forest, one step at a time, was Eve.

However, Xiluo’er had never seen Eve like this before.

Her expression was so grim it seemed capable of murder. From the magic staff in her hand, dense magical energy continuously coalesced into various elemental attacks, poised to strike.

No, that wasn’t entirely accurate. She *had* seen Eve like this. If she thought carefully, during the later stages of the game, when Eve fully succumbed to her dark side, she had worn this very expression.

‘Uh, for example, when she discovered Xiluo was actually an inside agent and proceeded to tear him limb from limb…’

At this thought, Xiluo’er involuntarily shivered. ‘No way, right? Eve and I haven’t even met yet. How could I have been exposed?’

Eve looked at Xiluo’er, who was sprawled on the ground and covered in dust, and the chill in her eyes intensified.

Her gaze sent a shiver down Xiluo’er’s spine. However, Eve did not attack her; instead, her gaze shifted to the Rotten Wolf Leader beside them.

Eve was, at this moment, incredibly furious.

Xiluo’er and Rona lay disheveled on the ground, their injuries unknown, while a giant wolf glared at them from a short distance away.

After separating from the two, Eve quickly noticed that the number of magical beasts surrounding her had decreased. She swiftly pursued them in the direction Rona had originally gone—only to witness this scene.

Moreover, the sudden appearance of the flying dagger and the thought that today’s incidents might be part of someone’s scheme only fueled Eve’s rage further.

If it were only her being targeted, it might be acceptable. But today’s events involved not only her friend Rona but also Xiluo’er, which Eve absolutely could not tolerate.

Thus, in her extreme fury, Eve felt something within her undergo a transformation.

Without time to ponder the nature of this change, Eve casually conjured a fireball far more powerful than usual and unleashed it upon the giant wolf.

Watching the person and the wolf immediately clash, Xiluo’er instantly realized something else was amiss.

Eve’s strength. It felt wrong.

The power she was now displaying was far beyond merely the late stage of the fifth rank.

Observing the Rotten Wolf Leader repeatedly retreat under Eve’s onslaught, and sensing the magical fluctuations in the air, a conjecture arose in Xiluo’er’s mind.

‘Could Eve have… just broken through to the sixth rank?’

One must remember that even with Eve’s protagonist’s halo and extraordinary talent, the gap between the fifth and sixth ranks, though seemingly a single step, represented a leap from intermediate to advanced.

Xiluo’er recalled that in the original game’s storyline, the protagonist Eve only broke through this barrier after leaving Kana City, roughly halfway through the plot development of the next map.

Eve’s advancement speed was already astonishingly fast. If she had reached the sixth rank now, it would be even more incredible!

This speed was no longer merely a matter of talent. Xiluo’er even wondered if Eve had experienced some kind of intense stimulation to break through so rapidly.

Regardless, for now, this was undeniably a good thing.

Facing an Eve who had just broken through to the sixth rank, the Rotten Wolf Leader was utterly helpless. In just a few rounds, Eve cornered it.

Then, accompanied by a dazzling, massive lightning bolt, the charred Rotten Wolf Leader collapsed to the ground with a thud.

Seeing their leader defeated, the other Rotten Wolves scattered like monkeys from a toppled tree, scrambling to escape.

However, staring at the enormous, lifeless body of the Rotten Wolf before her, the grimness on Eve’s face did not dissipate.

She bent down, picked up Rona’s dropped sword, and with an almost blackened expression, stood before the Rotten Wolf, raising the sword high before plunging it down.